Game Design & Development (B.S.)

Suny canton’s four-year game design and development program is exclusively for students who want to design a new generation of video games and virtual reality on multiple platforms. It allows students to pursue their dreams and ambitions within the lucrative entertainment and software industry. 

Career Opportunities

• Game programmers
• Computer graphics and visualization developers
• Virtual reality and augmented reality software engineer
• Modelers
• Animators
• Digital content producers
• Level designers
• Texture mappers

The program is designed through real-world lessons and applied game production courses that lead playable video games. Students can expect to learn design sequence, prototyping, aesthetics of design, development, testing, production, manufacturing and marketing.

Career Outlook

• Employment of gaming software developer, computer graphics and virtual reality engineer, multimedia artists and animators, is projected to grow 6 percent from 2014 to 2024. Projected growth will be due to increased demand for animation and visual effects in video games, movies, and television, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
• The Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development is a comprehensive program focusing on the design and development of modern video games. Courses in the Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development program provide a focus on video game design and development, imaginary storytelling, and production needs of the modern gaming industry, Graduates of the Game Design program will have hands-on skills to pursue a career creating content for everything from home computers and mobile devices, to emerging platforms like cloud gaming. Studies include game software development as well as production processes used by top studios to design and produce best-selling games. The capstone project for this program is the design and development of a real-world video game application.

Students in this Major:

• Students will learn the most recent technologies and programming skills to create video games on multiple platforms and devices.
• They will learn the theories and fundamentals of the game development life cycle, such as prototyping, producing, designing, programming, level creation, art production, and testing.
• Through this program, students will gain a high degree of hands-on experience with the design and development of modern video games.
• They will also receive intensive training in developing and applying an algorithmic approach to problem solving through using structure and object-oriented programming techniques, as well as designing and building gaming databases.

Throughout the program, students will collect samples of their work and create a professional portfolio used in pursuing a job in gaming and other interactive entertainment industry.

Admission Requirements:

• Refer to the table of high school course prerequisites for admission.
• Students must be prepared to take ENGL 101 Composition and the Spoken Word.
• Transfer students must have completed a college level English course.
• Transfer students to this program must have a 2.0 GPA for admission.
• Transfer students from other institutions and majors have to complete certain bridge courses that could extend their graduation rate.